45 High Frequency Words

Within the reception year at school the children are expected the learn 45 high frequency words. The idea of learning these high frequency words is to give your child a head start in learning to read as research has shown that just 16 of these words (a, and, he, I, in, is, it, my, of, that, the, then, to, was, went, with) make up a quarter of all the words in a typical text.

 

Joshua usually gets 2 or 3 of these words to learn in his weekly homework. In addition to that the boys both have flash cards to help them to learn all of the words. However a week ago we found a magnetic set of the 45 high frequency words which we thought would be a great learning aid to use on the boys white board at home. So I created two boxes on the white board with a tick for correct and a cross for wrong. Then the boys have to read each word and if they get it correct then it goes in the tick box and if they get it wrong it goes in the cross box. Both boys love this and see it as more of a game than learning / homework time. On Joshua's first attempt he got 7 words wrong, on his second attempt he only got two wrong (are and away), tonight he got all 45 correct!

 

The white board with the magnetic high frequency key word game.

 

Brandon is also learning the high frequency words despite not starting school until this September. He does not know all the words yet but had a crack at 20 of them and managed to nail 16 correct and 4 wrong.